Posted standby wait time grossly inaccurate at TSM today

[KEVD]

So our rope drop plan was to go right to TSM and ride it 2x if the standby WT was 30 min or less. So after our first ride we see the standby WT 30 mins. Perfect we hop in line. 55 mins later we're at the loading area. With all the obsessive planning we do for our trips I don't think we've ever waited more than about 35 mins for anything. Felt like an amateur! Oh well... First world problems. We're having a blast this week!

 

[Planogirl]

Someone was probably slow about changing the wait time. I'm glad that you're having fun!

 

[iZon]

When we went last week of January we generally found the posted wait times to be overestimated by a factor of four. Odd. Mansion said 40 and it was 10. Mermaid said 25 and we were exiting 8 minutes after entering. This was the norm for the week.

 

[MouseyMin]

On my trip last year, I saw a posted wait time for Toy Story of 50 minutes. I walked in anyway, intending to look at the line and decide for myself. There was hardly anyone in there. Ten minutes later, I was on the ride. And, by the way, this was not late at night! I'm beginning to wonder about how authentic the post wait times are!

 

[lugnut33]

If they vastly over-estimate wait times then they keep people out of line and in the shops and restaurants.

 

[Buffalo2Disney]

Also if they over-estimate wait times it leads to less complaints from guests. I know personally I would rather wait 10 minutes in a line that was posted as a 40 minute wait than wait 40 minutes in a line that was posted as a 10 minute wait. Keeps guests happy.

 

[sedaniel]

Personally I think Disney is always messing with the wait times to fit their own concept of where they want to funnel guests to depending on how busy the park is. Last December we went to Disney for one week over New Years Eve and I used the Disney Wait Times website on my phone to see what the actual wait times were compared to the posted wait time. Our whole party thought I was crazy, until we started realizing that the website was super accurate: for example, a posted wait time for 40 minutes and an "actual" wait time according to the website of 25 minutes would actually turn out to be very close to the 25 minutes. Probably 90-95% of the time it was right. It was incredible! Then the website was taken down subsequently and not available during our next trip in February. From what I can gather on here and across the internet, it was taken down because the developer was pulling wait time data directly from Disney through some loophole and they have since closed that loophole.

What I've learned from that experience though is that it is pretty obvious Disney is altering wait times on purpose. So my method for deciding if we are going to wait for a ride is to usually look at the posted wait time with a grain of salt and try to weigh it against how long the line is, if they are using any "extra rope line" areas, how fast the line is moving, etc.

 

[CinderElsa]

That's so unusual. I wonder if it was a mistake or if there was some kind of issue with the ride. The last thing Disney wants is to underestimate wait times & face an army of angry guests.

 

[luvsJack]

They were all inaccurate in March too. Not always by longer, some said the wait was 10 minutes but actually 30 or so and some said 30 minute wait and was actually a walk on. CM's were saying the correct times (or their estimate) as people got in line for some things.

 

[ktlm]

That happens a lot in the mornings at TSM. They don't change the 30 fast enough. So many people go straight there and load up the line so fast that they can't keep up with changing the wait times. We have gone up when it said 30, and had CMs warn us that it was really more like 60 minutes more than once. We have also tried to get in the line when it said 30, and realized really quickly that there was no way it was at a point where it would only be 30 minutes and left. Probably within a minute or two after your entered, the time showing outside popped up to 60 minutes.

 

[chicagoshannon]

This is because of FP+. They start return times now right at opening. In the past the first return time wasn't until about an hour after park opening so you were able to ride a couple of times before the line built up. Ow people try for rope drop standby rides and FP rides right away.

 

[wisblue]

On our trip the week after Easter almost all of our actual waits were less than or equal to the posted wait times. In some cases, the actual waits were significantly lower than the posted waits.

The most notable exception was when we entered the single rider line at about 8:45 on a day with an 8 AM EMH. Because of some issues with our bus from WLV to Epcot (the main issue was with the stop at Fort Wilderness at a couple of scooters that had to be loaded, we didn't get to Epcot as early as we wanted, and it took us longer to ride Soarin than it would have if we had arrived at 7:30-7:40 like we should have. Anyway, when we got to TT the posted wait for single rider, the posted time was 25 minutes, but the line was out the building, leading us to suspect that the wait would be longer. But, because it was going to be a crowd level 10 day at Epcot, we decided to wait because we didn't have any other priority attractions that morning. Not long after we got in line, someone behind us said the posted wait had just gone up to 45 minutes, and our wait ended up being about 35-40.

The moral of the story is something that we learned years ago. The posted wait times at the most popular attractions can be very inaccurate in the first hour or so after opening. They start high to account for the anticipated initial surge, and then get bumped up as the surge occurs. At 7DMT for example, we were in the first wave to arrive and the posted wait time was 45 minutes even though we were on and off in less than 10 minutes. When we got off, the posted wait was still 45 minutes, which may or may not have been accurate by then.

In the case of the OP's experience, if there was no ride breakdown, you probably got caught in the gap between the initial surge and the posted wait time being bumped up to account for the crowd having built up past the earlier posted time. The posted time was probably increased shortly after you entered the line.

 

[DisneyFive]

That happens a lot in the mornings at TSM. They don't change the 30 fast enough. So many people go straight there and load up the line so fast that they can't keep up with changing the wait times. We have gone up when it said 30, and had CMs warn us that it was really more like 60 minutes more than once. We have also tried to get in the line when it said 30, and realized really quickly that there was no way it was at a point where it would only be 30 minutes and left. Probably within a minute or two after your entered, the time showing outside popped up to 60 minutes.

This! The actual wait time ramps up SOOOO fast at TSMM in the morning as people pack the standby and FP+ queues. They can't accurately keep up with updating the wait time.

Dan

 

[ParrotBill]

With higher FP+ loads the Stand by lines have become more sensitive to smaller shifts in queue sizes. You can expect the posted time to be less accurate any time there is a rush, even a small one... such as after parades and shows, and especially when a ride is having issues and is shutting down temporarily or longer term.. and when it resumes.

 

[mare1203]

You also have to remember that they set the time based on when the person with the timer gets on. If they get in line and then are followed by a huge tour group or a parade let-out, then their wait may have been 20 minutes, but yours is actually 40. There were often times as greeter we would call in to have the time changed when we saw this happen (sometimes you're too busy to call, though). If you can figure out how to set an accurate wait time without those factors I'm sure Disney would love it! Sometimes the CM working greeter can give you a relatively accurate wait time based on where the line is currently ending, but if, in the case of TSMM, the line queue's in various ways inside, then it's much more difficult.

 

[ParrotBill]

On our last trip, it became a game to watch the 7 Dwarves queue as compared to the posted wait... since you can see most of the queue from the walkway... we learned to read when the wait was really shorter than posted. So we managed to snag two rides at 20 minutes wait instead of the posted 50 mintues!

 

[ccudmore]

The wait times are "Lagging Indicators" in that they show you what the wait time was, not what it is or will be. When they hand out the red card to someone in line and then take it from them when they get on the ride, they time how long it took that person to get through the line. It doesn't indicate how long the wait is for a new person who gets into the end of the line. The line may have doubled since the person with the card got in line, but the measurement of their wait time doesn't capture that.

 

[wiscbugs]

On the CM's screens at each ride (where they see the fastpass names), they have both the actual wait time and posted wait times listed. When we were there at the beginning of the month, we would always look at that and you could see the difference. For example, once Peter Pan's wait time was posted as 100 minutes but actual wait time listed was 68 minutes. They use the posted wait times more as crowd control than actual timing mechanisms.

 

[DisneyMandC]

That's odd, we were there last week and for the most part everything seemed very accurate. SDMT was 55 and we waited that long. Occasionally we'd see something like Expedition Everest at 10 and we'd walk on, or Buzz Lightyear at 20 and we'd wait 10, but nothing drastic like what you all have referenced.

 

[wisblue]

The wait times are "Lagging Indicators" in that they show you what the wait time was, not what it is or will be. When they hand out the red card to someone in line and then take it from them when they get on the ride, they time how long it took that person to get through the line. It doesn't indicate how long the wait is for a new person who gets into the end of the line. The line may have doubled since the person with the card got in line, but the measurement of their wait time doesn't capture that.

I don't think this is the whole story.

The red card is clearly a lagging indicator, but I am quite sure that the posted wait time is not simply the last recorded red card data. This would definitely not work well when the crowd is surging, like when the park first opens or when a parade or show in the area lets out.

Because our experience over the years has been that actual wait times are shorter than the posted wait times MUCH more often than they are longer, my conclusion is that the posted wait time is based on a combination of (1) the red card data, (2) observations of the CMs at the ride about the length of the standby line, and (3) a "fudge factor" designed to have the posted wait be longer than the actual wait most of the time.

For example, on our last trip, we went on the Haunted Mansion on 3 different days, each time at about 10-10:30 in the morning on days on which the MK had EMH at 7 AM and was very crowded (as high as crowd level 10 on at least one of the days). It would only stand to reason that at that time of the morning the wait for an attraction like HM would be increasing as more people enter and work their way back to that part of the park. Yet, on each of those 3 days, our actual waits were significantly shorter than the posted waits. The posted waits were all 20 or 25 minutes and our actual waits were 10-15. I doubt that on each of those days the last recorded red card data would have shown those longer waits, but that the wait then dropped significantly. It looked like the posted wait time in each case had been inflated in anticipation of the line increasing and to account for the possibility of a sudden rush of FP holders which never occurred.